


Strangers

by CrackingLamb



Series: Just Like Fire - Prompt Fills for La'vise Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Ficlet, No Plot/Plotless, Prompt Fill, a bit of character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Of course they were strangers when they first met.She just didn't realize they would end that way too.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Just Like Fire - Prompt Fills for La'vise Lavellan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901281
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	Strangers

“Quickly, before more come through!”

La'vise Lavellan didn't have time to think, or even react. The stranger took her wrist in a firm grip, held up her hand to the glowing green rift and suddenly...

Suddenly...

The connection was visceral, blinding. It stole her breath and weakened her knees. It hurt like a burn, like something was trying to pull her soul through the palm of her hand. She glanced at the stranger's face and saw he was scowling fiercely at her. It was shocking, the amount of rage on his face. They'd never even seen each other before. Why would he be angry?

The rift closed and he let her go, stepping back and when she looked at him, his face was placid and expressionless. For a moment she wondered if perhaps she'd imagined the wrath, or that it hadn't been aimed at her at all, considering what they were fighting.

“What did you do?” she asked, curious now as her hand thrummed with energy and her whole body felt weak and disjointed. A badly sewn doll.

“I did nothing,” he replied. There was emphasis there. Implication that she was the one responsible, that he had nothing to do with this. That he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as she was.

She didn't know how she knew it, but she wasn't buying it.

He was a quiet man. He would greet her courteously enough, but it was reserved, cautious. He didn't warm to her presence until she asked questions, until she prodded deeper, until she announced her interest in anything he had to say. Until she promised him that no matter what else happened, she would not let a fellow elf fall between the cracks of a human run organization. He cared little for her Dalish roots, but that didn't mean she would allow him to forget that they were together in this chaos.

He spoke little when they traveled. He would make occasional comments on the scenery, the energy of a place, the memories that lingered past what those without magic could sense. He was often insightful with few words, and she learned to listen for them. He was often cold and curt with their other companions, prone to snapping with a temper barely leashed. At least in the beginning. It wasn't long before he began to make overtures of peace and understanding. She assumed he'd been on his own too long, and had forgotten what polite company was like.

“Or, without magical training, you cannot notice the parts of my magic that clunk,” he said to Iron Bull. La'vise snorted aloud. How did he make such an absurd statement sound so proud?

He was graceful in battle. He had used those words on her, but she didn't think they applied. But him! Magic was a partner to him, and he made it dance like poetry in motion. She caught herself more than once just watching him when she should have been defending.

He was a finicky eater. His appetite was minimal for a mage so active, and there were times she grew concerned. She knew well from her clan's Keeper and First what it took to sustain magical energy in reserve. She resolved to find better foods to tempt him to keep up his strength. She didn't even analyze why it was important to her. He was part of her team, invaluable as a voice of counsel, a friend, a mentor. The fact that it gave her an opportunity to spend time in his presence was neither here nor there.

He preferred softer clothes, things that wore well and did not often need repair. He usually had smudges of charcoal on his fingertips, but it was months before she caught him in the act of drawing. He was a private man, and for the most part, she respected that. The first time he asked if she would sit for him, she nearly preened to be allowed a glimpse into his soul.

He treasured solitude every bit as much as he treasured trusted company. She rarely saw him inside the cramped tavern of Haven, but would often find him leaning on the wall outside, nursing some mulled something or other in a mug. After a while, it became a habit to join him there, shivering in the cold wind without feeling it as they talked. As they flirted. For he was a smooth flirt for a man so uncommonly diffident. No, not that. And not nervous either.

She didn't know what he was, only that his words could equally make her blood burn as they could make her laugh.

He had a soothing presence. She was rattled by the events that led to Haven's fall, rattled further by the unwavering devotion of these humans who looked to her to lead them out of the wilderness. To save them. She was just a Dalish hunter. Her only power came from something accidentally bestowed. _He_ was the one who gave them direction, helped her find her purpose in all this mess.

“Their faith is hard won, lethallan, worthy of pride,” he said by the light of a veilfire torch in the middle of nowhere. _Kin_ , he called her. _We are the same_. She knew enough of her mother tongue to know there was a layer there, for his own name meant pride. Did he see her as worthy of his attention too?

He did.

He had a mouth made for the kind of sinning the Chantry warned against. Stuff and nonsense to her, proud heathen that she was, but still...when he kissed her it was consuming. It was wonderful. It stole her breath and made her burn all the more. In this, he was not nearly as cautious as he felt he should be. She delighted in it.

His touch was sure, confident. He knew precisely how to unravel her secrets, how to make her fall apart in his arms and see her through to the other side of their passions. When he said her name, she could hear each and every connotation of the syllables, he knew them all. He was fluent in their dying language.

It had been a hint, she realized later. Much later, when she was alone with her broken heart. When he was gone. His legacy on her was as timeless as his years, written stark for anyone to see in his murals, written still upon her brow where colorful twining lines declared her a free Dalish adult...but a slave to the Creators. She had won no victory in slaying Corypheus. She had lost all that she was, all that she meant, all she had done.

“Solas,” she said, aching with pain as the Anchor ate at her arm, up to her ankles in frigid water as he stood with his back to her. He turned, his face sad and heavy, resigned. Cautious.

She thought she knew him, and perhaps she _did_ know a side of him that had lain fallow for uncounted years. She had been right those years ago when she didn't believe that he had nothing to do with any of this. She had been so right. She did not know this stranger.


End file.
